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At 7/2/14 12:46 AM, Korriken wrote: The sad part is that is politicians try to label themselves as "just a normal person, one of the regular folk", but when you get a politician that actually IS "just a normal person, one of the folk" the media portrays them as "stupid amateurs who have no idea what they're doing"

That's entirely true. Would you ride in a 787 flown by "just another person, one of the regular folk"? Fuck no you wouldn't. You want trained pilot. Same goes for governance. You don't want some dumbass regular trying to run the country. You want someone who is intelligent and has an expertise in some aspect needed to run a country. FYI, being able to amicably drink beer with your average small townie is NOT a good qualification.

Sometimes things that sound good turn out to be major shit when practiced. The notion of a regular joe in polictics is most definitely one of these sort of things.

This is a pretty good idea, but I would still ban all guns seen by the store.

Guns have no place in a store (save for a store that sells them, and then the only ones that do are either on the shelf or on the way from the shelf to checkout). They drive away business, if they do not expressly drive away business they create an uncomfortable atmoshpere which has a downward effect on how much people will buy at any given trip.

Even if a store was better protected from robbery with civilian guns present, the cost benefit weight heavily against allowing them. In a robbery you may lose a few thousand dollars of merchandise with a possible x2 of damage. On the worst case scenario, it may reach 6 figures. 1 person gets injured because you allowed guns in your store and you'll be easily liable for a mutli-million dollar lawsuit. It would take a significant amount of robberies to equal the cost of one bothced incident involving a civilian with a gun. Add that the the downward pressure open cary guns put on number of shopping trips and the amount purchased during those tirps and you have a very expensive deterrent for a quite rare and relatively inexpensive nuisance.

As far as it comes to feeling protected, y'all are pretty trusting of strangers for being entirely xenophobic of strangers. Who's to tell you whether the man carrying that AR15 in Target is a good guy or is merely loitering around for the best time to shoot up the place? Are you going to walk up to the guy with a gun (who already has strong personal issues, hence the dire need to bring a gun into a store) and ask him if he's a criminal or not? Aside from asking an off kilter person such a question, how are you to believe anything that person says? Wouldn't it be pretty easy for a criminal to lie and say he's the good guy, then shoot your child as you walk away?

Perhaps the massive quagmire that is involved would make a company simply decide to put their foot down and keep all the issues outside of their property.

At 7/1/14 07:14 PM, brutalexcess wrote: And unfortunately marriage is traditionally a religious service owned by the Church

Actually this is flat out wrong. Marriage has traditionally been an economic and social fixture, largely facilitated by the state.

At 7/1/14 04:37 AM, Memorize wrote: So biology doesn't matter... a person's feelings do?

Actually biology does matter. Up until the point where a fetus is considered an inedependent person the mother is the arbiter of its personhood status. The presumption is that unless aborted the mother has decided to confer that status upon the fetus.

The line that is of issue is when the state steps in and makes the decision for the mother.

Biology is the reason the mother gets to ontrol up until the per se line that the state decides. Up until the fetus is a viable the fetus is another appendage of mother, little different from a kidney, ling, or arm. The only real difference is that left alone the fetus will likely become an independent life form at some later date. As far as viability, the fetus must be of age to which the vast majority (70-80%) of ther fetuses would be able to survive outside of the womb with little to no medical assistance. Most organs can be sustained outsie of the body with the help of extreme medical equipment. As such, the use of medical equipment in that manner does not alter the definition of viability.

In short, up until the point of independence, the fetus is an appendage of mother, therefore the mother is the sole arbiter of its fate. The mother can choose to terminate it, but a third party cannot.

At 6/30/14 07:52 PM, mysticvortex13 wrote: equality doesnt work in such a way that we can simply ban both parties from slurring each other, since the slurs themselves will always exist, and as long as they exist, there will be people willing to use them.

You're taking this many steps too far. The changing of the name has nothing to do with stamping out discrimination. What it hs to do is with government sanctioned discrimination. A Trademark is an entirely government created concept. Everything that is protected sends a message out to the public that the government approves of the mark and its message. The government in its attempt to not support and saction discrimination has decided that it will not provide protection for any mark that is shown to be largely discriminatory and without other meaning.

By removing the Redskins trademark all the government is essentially saying is that the government does not label native americans as such and that it will not protect and supports marks that do either.

The removal of the TM does not mean that the Redskins have to change their name. All it means is that so long as the name is considered largely discriminatory the government will refuse to protect the name.

instead, we must work to change the very definition of these slurs, and take them as empowerments.

This is both true and very naively wrong. It is true that i a perfect world the best way to undo the pain of slurs is to capture them and make them one's own. Heck, it has even happened a few times in our very much imperfect world. However, in our imperfect world it's not so easy. The words themselves are pretty meaningless. It is the hefty baggage attached to the words that carries the punch (which is why you'll be very hard pressed to find a slur against white people that actually offends). The term Redskin is largely harmless on its face. When you look at the term as harkening back to the 1950s when native americans were merely fodder for cowboy rifles, they merely smoked the peace pipe and terrified white women, the portmanteau of a color and an organ no longer seems so hamrless. Add on top of the America's not so friendly history with native americans and it gets even worse.

The words are not the issue here, rather the emotions and connotations that people carry with the words are. When a white person uses the term redskin it may just be a football term to him, but when a native american hears it, it is a reminder of every problem they have had for hundreds of years.

i think it to be anyone's right to take offense to anything for however long they need to, but nothing more. perpetuating that offense taken, or taking countermeasures based on that offense alone is usually unwarranted and can lead to severely detrimental backlash effects of their own in the future..

It's a balancing act: weighing the size of the offense with the need to use the word. Guess what, the need for ANY American to use the word Redskin is very low, so the threshold for their offense need not even be that high for the word to be considered a problem.

At 6/29/14 10:08 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote: It's amazing how progressive retards like yourself will give a free pass to the most hateful, violent and bigoted force in the world today but will lose your shit over mean words on the fucking internet.

I know. White people have been seriously let off the hook.

At 6/28/14 04:54 PM, mysticvortex13 wrote: no, it wouldnt be. that is called a miscarriage, and is not always done with the intent to kill the fetus.

A third party causing a miscarriage without the consent of the mother is considered murder.

it isnt a person yet, and thus cannot be murdered any more than one's own blood cells could be

Trure, but as it is part of the mother and the mother did not make the decision, personhood status can be attached for this purpose alone.

even if it were possible to be a person at that point in time, depending on whether the intent was there, it would be manslaughter or assault, not murder.

Punching a pregnant women in the stomach would at least be depraved indifference,which is still a murder charge. As for assault, ANY assault that leads to death is murder, not manslaughter.

At 6/27/14 04:04 PM, mysticvortex13 wrote: how is murder of a fetus a thing?

A third party attacking the mother casuing the death of the fetus. That would be murder of the fetus, and that is judged on different grounds than abortion.

At 6/26/14 10:44 PM, mysticvortex13 wrote: so you think that we should stop people from mentioning chicken and black people in the same sentence?

People are free to say and do what they wish, regardless of the social morality or consequences. Businesses, as semi-public entities, must follow a stricter set of rules.

it doesnt cut it to simply discourage both groups from using their slurs. the slurs will always be there. i'm just saying, we dont need to let them hurt us. we can take them as empowerments, and use that to stop the process..

Sure they can be empowering. But they also are not. Don't blame the victim here for not reacting in the way you like. Blame the people who are intentionally trying to hurt the victims, or are too careless to think of the negative effects their characterizations may have.

In a situation where a significant portion of native Americans in the country are living in poverty and are otherwise on the lower fringes of society, a widely popular and widely visible characterization of them as savages easily puts the idea in the mind of the Native Americans that society doesn't want them to move on and prefers them to remain in their downtrodden existsence. It's extremely difficult to succeed in a society when you honestly believe that the soceity doesn't believe you're on the same level.

Can they buck this idea and ignore the offensive characterizations? Probably. Should they have to just to allow everyone else the slight convenience of not having to watch their word when it comes to business? No.

it wont make the slurs disappear, nothing will, but our culture's use of them, and their very definition, will change for the better.

And those who get murdered should just have tried harder to stay alive. Those who get robbed should have tried harder to not cave in to the threat of violence. So on and so forth.

At 6/26/14 01:43 PM, Warforger wrote: Please, everyone agree's that murder is wrong, the debate is only over where life begins. THAT'S the issue, no one's arguing murder is ok, which seems to make up a big part of the pro-life argument.

I would separate the two even further, as murder of a fetus by an outside person is measured on very different grounds than those of abortion.

At 6/25/14 10:49 PM, Newgaf wrote: So people determine who count as people, since we're the things that designate.

The idea of "personhood" is and always been an entirely moral construct. In the days of slave keeping, slaves were not people even though they were human. Even after that, black people were only 3/5 of a person.

And it isn't innate.

Even if it were innate, we're not talking about removing personhood status. We're talking about when a human first gets personhood status. Mind you, children are not considered full persons until they turn 18.

At 6/25/14 11:43 AM, mysticvortex13 wrote: why ban it from trademarkery..

Because trademark law explicitly bans marks that are racially disparaging in nature.

other than the fact that i dont think trademarks, or most other forms of intellectual property law, should be a thing in the first place..

When discussing with complex subjects, it's never a good idea to openly scream out that you have no idea how the subject works. If you don't understand the most basest point of a thing, you probably shouldn't be discussing it.

At 6/24/14 07:35 PM, Warforger wrote: I bet they can spell Islamophobic right!

Apparently you have never been to the Yahoo! comment section...

The only things that exist in less volume than sanity are proper spelling and grammar.

At 6/24/14 03:42 PM, InsectGadget wrote: People can believe what they want, and they have the right to express their opinion and for it to be respected,

Only respectful opinions deserve respect.

At 6/24/14 03:16 PM, Memorize wrote: Pro-life individual claims that a fetus should be considered a person because they will eventually be born. Pro-Choice (and your) Response is to say: It doesn't matter what it will be, what matters is what it currently is... which is not a person.

This is true.

If this is the case, then how can you claim no one can ever lose person-hood status?

ALL humans born in America recieve personhood status upon birth. Personhood cannot be taken away. Once something is designated as a person it is always a person.

The question with abortion is one of artificial extension of personhood status. In other words, should we extend personhood to any period PRIOR to birth and if so, how far?

My view which is one shared by many pro choice people is that a fetus first has the ability (notice, it is not automatic) to achieve personhood status once it is largely independent of mother and not merely an appendage of the mother. This is the point of viability. This is when a fetus can first achieve the status.

As far as the point of never losing peronhood, think of it like a mile driven on a car, or virginity. Once a cr has driven a mile it cannot be undriven. Once virginity has been taken it cannot be untaken. Once something is designated as a person it cannot cease being a person.

The Yahoo! comments section is known for having a strong contingent of insanely conservative followers. The funny thing is they aren't too bright (as you'd expect).

Want to know a trick that keeps them away? Look for the articles that are political but not overtly titled. The conservatrolls on Yahoo! only end to jump on the most overt of political topics and seemingly miss similarly slanted but more complex titled articles. It's as if they truly have no ide what they talk about, they just hear a buzz word and feel th need to spout their trash in the section, Klown style.

At 6/23/14 11:15 PM, Leddusadeladus wrote:

Oh the intentional shallowness...

You're right! So i'm guessing we should eliminate disabled and elderly people as well.

Once a human attains peronhood they can never lose it. Non viable fetsuses have not yet attained personhood.

Oh, brb, gotta go kill some newborn puppies.

Oi. You're intentionally not listening, are you? Thems doggies beenborn so they are alive.

Oh and i'll remember to keep my standards of morals to what the law says. Lord knows that just because American law says so that it's morally correct.

This is a true statement. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it is right. You'll actually find that most pro-choice people abhor abortion and would never perform or advocate for their performance if the issue came up. (I'd actually posit, that pro-choicers do MORE to stop abortion that pro-lifers). However, on the converse, just because something is morally wrong shouldn't make it illegal.

At 6/23/14 11:24 AM, TheKlown wrote: Will you left wing lunatics ever admit that Abortion is Murder?

No moreso murder than removing a wart or attacking a tumor.

And no, your video didn't gotcha'd me.

At 6/22/14 05:13 PM, wildfire4461 wrote: Related pic' I came across on Facebook. Is this trademark on the chopping block next?

GAAAhHHHHH!!! The intentional density here is just too much! It's palpable. I could cut it with a dull butterknife.

NO. CRACKERJACK AIN'T OFFENSIVE! STOP YOUR DUMB TALK!!!

While, you are right, you are also wrong.

Yes, it is true the divide between Democrat and Republican in hisotry has been over numerous things and no one issue would pin them to any current of today's parties.

You are wrong in two ways, though.

First off, the Democrats do NOT need to reconcile the past. Very few Democrats today were alive and of voting age back when this was an issue. There is no reason this should be a stain on the modern Democrat party as the modern Democrat party has openly, overtly, and completely moved on. Lest you thinkwe should all answer for the crimes of our long dead ancestors, and in that case, I think we all have some 'splainin to do.

Second, I actually disagree with your entire premise when it comes to the specific age in question, the decade or so right before the Nixon flip. This era, Southern politics were dominated by rcism and the tactics needed to keep racism. The biggest point of the Southern Democratic Party in the late 1950s and early 1960s would sound very much like a current Republican platform: States Rights, Religious freedom, and a general anti-government attitude.

Now, mind you, that last point is very much relegated only to the Southern Democrats, and does not include the North Eastern Democrats of that time period.

At 6/20/14 10:57 AM, LazyDrunk wrote: Since when is skin color a perjorative term? I'm white, you're spineless. Which is perjorative?

Does opposition to the TM removal come with a mandatory density? Or does one just have to incredibly stupid to be n that side?

Redskin is NOT pejorative because it says the skin is red. It's pejorative because of the pictur eit paints of native Americans, being little more than savages who are either too busy scalping or too busy smoking a peace pipe.

Let meguess, because you think skin color is NEVER pejorative, you think the N word is completely A-OK right? I mean, It's a word based on the dark skin color of black people. Shit, the worst word for a Jew is based on the word CIRCLE. One of the italian slurs is based on the lacking of papers. You have to be stupid or intentionally dense to think the literal meaning of the slurs is the reason why people don't like them.

It's a word used to describe Americans, and at one point, used to describe a certain type of American (northerner). But hey, don't let historical context get in the way of making a point against your premise.

How does that go against my premise? One word is taken as negative by the target group and the other is not.

That's YOUR innate racism coming to the surface, not the word "redskin".

Your density is showing. I've already said that I don't care about the name. What I say about the connotations comes from an amalgam of what numerous Native Americans have told me about the image the nme and mascot project.

I still think you need a crash course in Real Life.

Ah yes, because you can't make an actual point you try the FOX News tactic of attacking the messenger. Bravo.

At 6/19/14 04:27 PM, Korriken wrote: Yankee was coined as a derogatory word against Americans by the British.

You forget the all important second half:

"But it was quickly picked up and used by Americans as a source of Pride, and has not been considered negative for a significant period of time."

Or maybe I could make Cracker Barrel change their name because it contained Cracker, which can be considered derogatory towards white people.

I GET IT! YOU R MAD. Seriously, will you stop ith these poorly thought out, juvenile, Klown-esque, GOTCHA straw men? SERIOUSLY. Repeating the same stupid cleavland steamer will never change the fact what you are saying is a piece of shit.

No, Cracker Barrel in NO FUCKING REASONABLE WAY can be held as a pejoratove term. Yankee hasn't been negative (and is actually held as a prideful term) by those whom it represents. Redskins, on the other hand presents the idea tht all native Americans are the fodder for John Wayne in a 1960s Cowboy versus indian movie and nothing more. That all they do is scalp whit people and asmoke'um the peace pipe.

If you can't see this, then I think you need to step aside and let the mature adults deal with this issue.

I'm sure I have at least one or two views tha have flipped. However, I don't know which ones though. My views tend to flow like Mollasses so unless I went back and actively studied my old views, I am unable to tell. They just change so slowly.

At 6/18/14 10:51 PM, Feoric wrote: From what I can tell the distinction doesn't really matter, because the contrarian point of view basically boils down to fuck cultural sensitivity"

I'm merely trying to say that one issue IS of cultural sensitivity, and the other has absolutely nothing to do with cultural sensitivity.

At 6/18/14 09:05 PM, Tony-DarkGrave wrote: chiefs, Redskins and the Vikings

Nope, just the redskins.

a majority of natives really don't give a SHIT and 90% didn't see it as a slur.

This is the only argument you have made in your favor.

a regional College where I live use the Fighting Sioux as their mascot and the local tribes of Sioux OK'ed it except for one trying to hold out because of internal politics even though they even got a percentage of the money out of the mascot , but the college discontinued the name because they were getting tired of the bullshit that came with it because of politically correct assholes like you.

This is an entirely different issue. The usage of specific tribe names is not one of political correctness or of racism. It is an issue of likeness appropriation. In the same way I can protest a company randomly taking my picture and making it their logo, a tibe can protest the use of their tribe as a mascot. There can be numerous reasons someone would not want their name or likness used by another. It has little to do with political correctness.

The issues are close nough to see why you made the connection, but in the end they are different enough to be irrelevnt to eachother.

At 6/18/14 08:42 PM, RydiaLockheart wrote: This means no money for an RGIII jersey.

They still get the money from any official Redskins merchanidise sold. What they lose the ability to do is go after the multitude of fake and counterfiet goods, as well as losing their leverage to charge third party makers in new contracts a fee for using the logo and name.

For the short term this will have little impact. Once the cirrent licensing agreements begin to expire is when the teams will start seeing the hit.

At 6/18/14 06:21 PM, orangebomb wrote: I'm curious though, there are still a lot of other Native American nicknames (Florida State Seminoles, and numerous high school) for sports teams that are still allowed, what makes them any different than the Redskins?

I hate having to explain pathetically simle ideas more than once.

Redskins is a negative term for Native Americans. That's the Alpha and the Omega of this. It has NOTHING to do with it just being an indian reference. It's ENTIRLEY to do with it being a negative and racist indian reference.

Most other Natively themed teams have the full support of the tribes they represent, and the others which are more generic chose names that were not very racist if racist at all.

Not to mention the fact that it took 80 years or so to address the name makes me a little disingenuous about the whole thing.

Actually, I find your argument to be disingenuous. I mean, why should we have given minorities civil rights in the 1960s? Shit, they sat on that crap for about 100 years. The gays? Well, they were sitting on it for a lot longer.

Your poorly thought out argument seems to conflate having the WILL to do something about it with having the POWER to do something bout it. Had the Native Americans had a ton of political clout in the 1950s, you can bet the name would have been on the chopping block then.

I do generally agree that this can be taken to far. It absolutely can. Personally, I couldn't give two shits about the Redskin's name, but as the facts lie here, there is no tenable way to defend or ridicule this decision. Stop trying to act like this is the end of the world, because it's not, nor can it even be considered an overreach. Save your outrage for when the overreach actually occurrs.

At 6/18/14 03:57 PM, Korriken wrote: So, a bunch of people within nothing better to do with their lives but be offended at anything they can find failed a suit against the Redskins.

Well, it has been long established that marks based largely on the disparagement of other classes cannot be protected. Such is the lack of existence of old establishments like Littlbe Black Smabo's and the Coon Chicken Inn.

I guess the Chicago Blackhawks (hockey team) is next, they have an Indian mascot as well.

That is a myopic and quite naive jump. The problem with the Redskins is NOT the reference to indians or indian culture It's the nature in which it refers to it. Think of it like this: Zulu = OK, but calling that same team the Darkies or the Savages is bad. Calling a team the Samurai is OK, but calling them the Yellowmen is not.

The problem here is the team being called the Redskins which si a disparaging term for ntive Americans. Blackhawks, is not.

I wonder if they'll go after car companies too, because, you know, the Jeep Cherokee's name is offensive, grrr, rage!

Again, you're very much missing the point. Nothing about the term cherokee is inherently disparaging to any class of people. The tribe itelf may have a claim for appropriation of its name, but so far the Cherokee tribe seems to be A-OK with Jeep's usage.

At 6/16/14 07:37 PM, TheMason wrote: Interesting. I've got to admit that I've had a certain amount of emotional attachment to this story. I'm more interested in the military aspects of this story over the legal technicalities.

Makes sense. I did say earlier that regardless of whether Obama technically broke this law or not, he definitely broke the spirit of the law.

At 6/16/14 11:19 AM, Warforger wrote: I'd hardly call them "short".

Well, when you combine the times and it amouts to less than 1/4th that area's known recorded history, I'd say it's pretty dang short. That doesn't change the overall point that even when ruled under a larger empire, the region was often left almost entirely to its own devices so long as the top dog got tribute and resources.

Because of this long local rule the region never built much of a regional identity. Europe may have remained fractured, but in the end, Western Europe built a loose confederation of friendship, (not to mention that each state resulted from numerous local tribes coming together). China, by some strange stroke of fate, managed to build a relatively singular identity. The Middle East never built any of that. Some is slowly coming together now with an "Us vs the World" attitude, but still, local issues reign far in supreme of any communal/regional ones.

What do you mean by historical culture? To both Germany and Japan after WWII there was just a history of successful autocracy and a failed experiment in democracy. I'm sure that people back then felt about them as people feel now about the Middle East.

I mean that throughut the histry of Western Europe and Japan, larger, more singular empires have been the norm. Let's also not forget that prior to the invasions, both Japan and Germany had already organically developed the notio of their respective nations. The Middle East has never had that national unity. This has just much to do with there being little tradition in the region of groups forming together as one state a it does ih the fact that the borers in the region originated not from the people, but on a desk thousands of mikes away.

And, no. You're completely wrong about how people felt about Japan and Germany. Sure Democracy may not have been made perfectly, but both nations managed to stay extremely stable and quite peaceful. The issue people have with the Middle East and Iraq right now is not that Democracy isn't taking hold, most Americans couldn't give a shit, it's that the region has seemingly become averse to stability.

I'd blame the fear mongering of the Bush administration.

I don't think so. If this were a situation of the American populace droppin the ball, I'd tend to agree. This is not that case. Here we have the government dropping the ball. The government has never bought into the fear =mongering as that was not policy, but the grease to get the public to go along with the policy. (Propaganda is not meant for those in power) This just seems like grade A ineptitude. Perhaps it's shortsightedness with the goernment quickly jumping on whatever seems best at the time ignoring the consequences. It could also be those up top thinking they know what's up meddling over the actual knowledge and expertise of those who otherwise would be making the decisions.